Many of the 4chan communities are totally moral, from any standards: the cooking board (http://boards.4chan.org/ck) is my favourite board on 4chan, and it's just discussion of tasty eats.
As to copyrighted content, 4chan is the same as any other online message board that allows the embedding of images. 4chan has a staff of volunteer janitors to remove copyrighted content, and a smaller team of moderators to deal with repeat offenders.
Moot talks:
http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for...
Most people who speak of 4chan in this way, are really just talking about /b/.
Now, if you want to call it "the last bastion of freedom [to spread hate ideologies, post loli hentai, etc]", go ahead. However, be clear that you are defending the freedom to commit immoral acts.
4chan is the Mal Reynolds of the internet, not Luke Skywalker.
I see no problem with defending freedom of horrible people. Both from an ethical standpoint, and from a pragmatic standpoint (I would rather those people communicate in a way that has some visibility/oversight. You are not going to stop them, only push them underground; I think most would agree that would be a bad thing.)
Yes, and? If you actually believe in free speech, calling someone a Horrible Person is not a disguised argument for shutting them down.
4chan is full of really horrible people. Sometimes I am one of them. This doesn't mean they should be shut down by the government or something. However, it also doesn't mean they're Glorious Heroes Fighting For Righteousness.
Who is arguing that?
Now surely everyone is going to yell that they're just protecting their beloved web from censorship. However, since I never proposed censorship, that means most of them are arguing against the evil, censorious Congressman in their own heads, rather than against anything I actually said.
> oldfriend
Hey wait a minute ...
CENSORSHIP
And I don't think debating morality with the founder of 4chan is productive; if you have a moral sense it must be almost entirely libertarian.